Dark is the Moon

by Ian Irvine

  While this was going on the company had come running up. The Aachim looked to go to Tensor’s aid but Shand put out his arm and stayed them. They all gathered behind him, watching—impassive, shocked or angry.

  Karan saw Llian’s hungry eyes on her, but she had no time for him just now. “Get up,” said Karan. “Redeem yourself.”

  Tensor struggled, gave up, looked into Karan’s cold eyes, tried again and came to his knees. His skin was an ugly yellow gray, his brow dripping with sweat. “I cannot,” he said. “The pain…”

  “The pain?” she shouted in his face. “What is pain beside the pride of the Aachim? What is pain beside honor? To hell with your pain. The Tensor I knew would not have been swayed by it. Stand, if you have the courage.”

  Tensor squatted with his hands supporting him. He forced, fell back to his knees, forced; fell again. Forced. Fell. Each time he was weaker. Karan could see him failing before her eyes. It was all she could do to stare him down, hating herself. No point, if he could not do it.

  “If you have the courage…” she whispered, her complexion bleached of all color. The Aachim stirred behind her, but still Shand held them back. Tensor made a supreme effort, pushing himself against the pain and the exhaustion, to the limit of his strength and beyond. He fell again. He looked up at her—old, hopeless, desperate.

  “I cannot,” he croaked. “Will… will you help me?”

  It was over. Tears washing gullies down her salt-crusted cheeks, Karan put her arms about his waist and strained to lift him, carefully as ever she could. He staggered to his feet, supporting himself with his hands on her shoulders. Steadying himself, Tensor took a lurching step and would have fallen on his face, but she held him up. They rested for a moment then Karan gave him her shoulder and they made their laborious way past the company, down the hill and into the cavern to the place where Tensor had lain before. The others followed slowly behind, stepping together in pairs like an honor guard at a funeral.

  Tensor stood by his litter, leaning on her shoulder, looking down at her. “How would you have me redeem myself?” he asked in a gentle, hoarse voice.

  “I’ve no idea,” she replied, “only that a time will come and you will be called.”

  “I will answer,” he said, was lowered to his litter and fell into sleep.

  But all that night, and for the rest of their journey across the salt, Karan could not stop thinking about what had been done to her, what she might have been and what she now knew herself to be. A triune—a mad, shameful thing. Suddenly Karan felt dissatisfied with herself, at the part of her that had been lost forever. There was a hollow inside her that she could not fill.

  On the other side of the cavern the arguments were still going on when the sun rose. Llian listened, fascinated by the drama and noting everything in his perfect memory for his Tale of the Mirror. That cheered him up considerably. It was going to be a Great Tale, the twenty-third, and his name would be on it.

  “But how does it help us?” Tallia was speaking now. “We don’t know how to make the flute, or how to use it.”

  “That’s a problem for the morrow,” said Mendark. “Let’s make it first, if we can.”

  “It is the morrow and we can’t keep putting it off.”

  There was a long silence. The dawn wind flung salt crystals against their door with a gritty hiss.

  A croaking, halting voice spoke from the corner.

  “I know exactly how the flute was made,” said Tensor. “I can tell you, though at the last it will not avail you.”

  “You!” cried Mendark in astonishment, though whether at Tensor knowing it or at agreeing to help them, it was impossible to say.

  “In Aachan,” Tensor said wearily, “we became the lesser folk, the toilers, after the Charon took our world. We did the tiresome tasks and the unpleasant. There were many weary tasks in the making of the flute, too many for Shuthdar. He needed an assistant and I was that helper. How could I ever forget such a thing?”

  “How is it that you did not make another for yourself, if you knew the way?” Mendark asked suspiciously.

  “There was no opportunity in Aachan; and once we came to Santhenar, what need? We were happy here at first. We have never sought power, only freedom. Then, after the Forbidding, what would have been the point? Besides, Aachan gold was needed. Nothing else would suffice.” His eyes closed; he slept once more.

  They discussed this at length. “Do you think he can be relied upon?” Shand asked. “Better not to even think of using him, if he cannot.”

  “He has always been honest, after his own fashion,” said Mendark. “As honest as any great leader can be. But surely he serves his own purpose. And even if he remembers the making of it perfectly, that is not to say that it can be made anew.

  “Four things we will need to find or to learn.” Mendark ticked them off on his fingers. “One—enough gold, the right kind of gold, for the flute. Two—the way to make it. Three—the way to use it. Four—the one to use it. We have leads on the first and the second. Let’s see what we can do with them. If we can find gold and make the flute anew, there will be time to worry about whether we can use it. Perhaps that’s one of the secrets of the Mirror.”

  Perhaps it is, Llian thought, and maybe I will be the one to find it. Suddenly all his chronicler’s enthusiasm was renewed. What a tale it was going to make, and it was his.

  They should have been excited at the prospect that the flute offered, but as Llian looked around the little group he mostly saw dread on their faces. Or despair, that they would put everything into this venture and it would come to nothing. All but Mendark.

  “Malien, I must know more about the Mirror. What was written about it?”

  “Nothing that I know of, except that it existed, and it was perilous.”

  He frowned. “Why so?”

  “There was no need. Those few who wielded the Mirror knew everything about it. Then it became a quixotic and dangerous thing, and it was put aside and forgotten. After it was stolen, Yalkara wrested it to her own will; changed it. What we knew about it was no longer relevant.”

  “I can’t believe that nothing was written down.”

  “That was long before my time. You’ll have to ask Tensor or Selial. But not even Tensor can tell you what Yalkara did to it.”

  “Well, I’ll start working on the third problem,” said Men-dark. “The way to use it. I’ll take charge of the Mirror now, Shand.”

  “You won’t!” said Shand angrily. “It has come back to my keeping, and the gift of it is mine alone. Listen to what was foretold many years ago: The Mirror is locked, and cannot be used save by the One who can unlock it. That key lies within the Mirror itself. Can you resolve that paradox?”

  Mendark wrestled with the idea for a considerable time. “No,” he said.

  “Then you will never be able to use it.”

  Llian was consumed by the paradox but Shand would say no more.

  20

  * * *

  FIGHTING IN THE

  MUD

  During the day the storm wore itself out. Before dark they gathered their goods together and set off, hauling the sleds with their flabby waterbags along the grit of the canyon floor and onto the crystalline salt beyond, which crunched and crackled under the runners. It was now three weeks since the company had left Katazza, and twelve days since they’d filled their water bottles at the base of the mountain. They had water for another week, but it was eight or nine days to the lakes.

  They made better progress in the good conditions, particularly as the latter parts of each night were lit by the new moon rising, though ominously the dark side was now inching toward full.

  The days became unbearably hot and tedious—tempers flared for no reason at all. As the moon darkened, seeming to reflect their own troubles, so did the feuding grow worse. Since Karan’s attack Yggur’s eyesight had deteriorated again, which drove him into a cold, bitter fury with Llian, with Karan and with the whole world.

  Kara
n hardly noticed, so preoccupied was she with Tensor’s revelation, and what he had done to her.

  One day, Karan noticed that Selial seemed to have aged remarkably. Her silver hair had gone a dingy white and her clothes hung on her.

  “What’s the matter with Selial?” Karan asked Malien as they trudged across an utterly featureless plain of salt.

  “She will die soon. She has given up.”

  “Is there nothing that can be done for her?”

  “Would you make her suffer more than she already does?”

  Karan looked back. Selial was stumbling along by herself, head down, arms hanging lifelessly. At that moment she looked up, but did not acknowledge their gaze.

  “She was very kind to me in Shazmak.”

  “Then do her the same kindness. Give her words of comfort and thanks, the best you can make, and leave her be.”

  That evening, before they set out, Selial summoned the Aachim together. Karan was invited too. They took their places on the ground around her. The moon was three-quarters full, but it gave an eerie light, for it mostly showed the dark side.

  “My time has come,” Selial said with the dignity that so characterized her. “But my resting place is far from here, so I will keep on. I have chosen to lie beside the Iron Gates of the Hornrace, at the tip of the Foshorn. The Rainbow Bridge was our greatest feat in all Santhenar, and I would share my forever dreaming with my great-grandmother who made it. She is buried on the other side. May we meet again when Faranda and Lauralin are linked once more.”

  “I will come with you and bid you farewell,” said Karan with tears in her eyes.

  There was little to tell about the journey, save heat, salt dust, thirst and exhaustion. Mirages promised water every day, though they came to nothing but baked salt. One good thing had happened though—since Karan’s altercation with Tensor, Basitor had ceased persecuting Llian.

  On the seventh evening the water ran out. “How far now?” asked Yggur as they squeezed the last bottles dry.

  “At least a day,” said Osseion.

  They struggled on through the night, and at the end of it were suffering badly from dehydration. “It can’t be far,” Mendark panted as the first light crept over the eastern horizon. “Surely not much further.”

  The sun sprang up behind them, revealing flat salt in every direction. “Well,” Mendark said, “this is the moment of decision. Stay here and die, or keep on until we die. Either way, it won’t take long.”

  “We can go a little way yet,” said Shand, picking dry shreds of skin off his lips.

  Karan stopped abruptly, staring about her. The others continued, even Llian, until she was standing all alone.

  “What’s that?” she said, sniffing the air. Maybe it was her sensitive talent, or perhaps the months on the salt last spring had heightened her ability to smell water.

  No one answered; they just kept plodding along. There had been too many false alarms already.

  “We’re going the wrong way,” Karan shouted hoarsely. “I can sense water.” She turned around and around. “Yes, it’s that way, further south.”

  No one argued, or even spoke. It was too much effort. But they followed her.

  Karan continued for several hours. Every step had become a labor. Her muscles felt as if they had been glued together; her skin itched all over. She recognized the symptoms—advancing dehydration that would lead to her death before the day was over.

  As the sun rose higher, mirages shivered on the salt, the most inviting that they had ever seen.

  “Which way?” rasped Mendark.

  “I—I can’t tell,” said Karan. Her talent had deserted her again.

  “Lift me up, someone,” said Llian.

  Basitor and Osseion were the biggest. Basitor gave Llian a meaningful stare, but stood patiently beside Osseion while Llian was lifted onto their shoulders. He stood up gingerly and looked in every direction.

  “What do you see?” they cried.

  “Nothing! I’m not high enough.”

  Osseion and Basitor each seized an ankle and lifted him above their heads. Basitor’s hand was like a manacle.

  “I see water,” Llian croaked through cracked lips. He pointed further south of their track. “It’s the lakes!”

  “Another mirage!” gasped Yggur.

  “This one has trees,” Llian said, and before much longer they could all see them, a little patch of dark-leaved mangroves in the middle of the salt and a long vegetated mud bank running into the distance.

  “It is water!” Karan shouted, as if she hadn’t quite believed it herself. “Race you to it.”

  She and Tallia set off toward the lake at a stumbling run. Llian followed slowly; it was too hot for such foolishness. When Karan was almost at the water’s edge she sprang off a mound to clear a patch of mud. Landing, her feet went straight through a salt crust and she plunged hip-deep into the salty mud. She burst out laughing. “Whee! It’s hot!”

  She tried to push herself up but wherever she put her weight on the crust it broke off again.

  “Help!” she said, still laughing. Then she slid further down into the mud and suddenly realized that it was serious. “Tallia! It’s pulling me down.”

  Tallia had stopped at her initial cry, but water began to puddle around her feet and without warning the crust under her gave way as well.

  “Llian,” she shouted. “Run back! Get help!”

  Llian kept coming. He was afraid to go for help in case they were sucked right under.

  “Go on!” Tallia screeched. “We’ll be all right.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Karan, still floundering in the mud, as Llian ran off. Suddenly she slipped down again until the mud was breast-deep. She panicked and thrashed about wildly.

  “Don’t move,” said Tallia, who had managed to extricate one foot, only to sink so deep on the other that she overbalanced and fell sideways into the mud. She spat out muck and said, “Keep absolutely still. Spread your arms out.”

  Karan did so and the downward movement stopped momentarily. Llian came staggering back with Shand, Osseion and several of the Aachim, dragging their water sleds.

  “Help!” cried Karan. Her shoulders were almost covered now.

  Shand burst out laughing. “Keep still! You won’t go any deeper.”

  “It’s sucking me under,” Karan wept.

  “Nonsense! Mud’s heavier than water and you can float. How can it suck you under?”

  “Get me out!” she screamed. “When I want a school lesson I’ll ask for one.”

  Shand turned one of the sleds over so that its smooth metal surface lay on the crust, then pushed it ahead of him out to Karan’s mud hole. Llian followed with the second sled and after much heaving, swearing and disgusting squelching noises they had Karan out again. By this time Tallia had rescued herself, for her long legs had found hard mud underneath the sucking stuff.

  Once they were back on solid ground the rest of the company took much amusement from the sight of them. Karan looked like a mud sprite—muck oozing off every surface. And it stank too, with a ripe rotten-egg stench.

  “You smell like a hundred-year-old fart,” guffawed Llian.

  “Don’t be disgusting,” said Karan, almost in tears.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tallia said to her.

  “Very probably.” Eyeing their tormentors, Karan ran a cupped hand up her thigh, wadded mud into a ball and flung it at the sniggering Llian. It splattered most satisfyingly right in the middle of his chest.

  “Hey!” he said and fell over backwards.

  At the same instant Tallia’s ball smacked Shand right in the ear.

  “Right!” he roared. “That’s how you show your gratitude, is it?” He scooped mud off the sled and hurled it at Karan.

  Then it was on, missiles flying back and forth, everyone laughing and shrieking. Even Basitor joined in, hitting Llian over the head with a mud ball the size of a melon and laughing fit to burst. Llian did too, af
ter he’d got over the shock, and that surprised Basitor almost as much as it did him.

  Mendark came running up to see what was the matter and copped one right in the eye, an event that gave Karan a fierce thrill of pleasure, especially as she knew that Tallia had thrown it. Mendark was not amused and the fight petered out soon afterwards. It was too hot for such strenuous activity, and they were too worn out, so they looked for a safe path down to the water to bathe. Karan and Tallia went together, still chuckling.

  There were no fish here, for the lake was too shallow and hot, but the salty water was a sovereign feed for the Aachim’s sun stills. The first cup of warm, tasteless water was offered to Selial with all the reverence of a noble vintage, and the lifeless Selial perked up and smacked her lips with equal appreciation. Once the trazpars were going they had a party, all the water that they could drink.

  At the other end of the lake there were fish in superabundance, so concentrated in the shrinking pools that a single cast of a net would feed them all. They found a vast congregation of birds as well, ducks and divers spiraling in the air then plunging down to gorge themselves before their long pilgrimage north for the winter. Waders stilted across the quickmud that made most of the approaches to the lake treacherous. The place stank of bird manure.

  Osseion made a net by unraveling some pieces of cloth and knotting the threads back together, his thick fingers dancing over the knots.

  “I was better at this when I had ten fingers,” he said to Llian, rubbing the space where the tenth had been. By the time the sun set he had a coarsely woven net of half a dozen spans length. “Here, hold this end.”

  “It doesn’t look very strong,” said Llian, eyeing it doubtfully.

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be; we’ll only use it once or twice.”